‘Anora’ Review: One Of The Funniest, Saddest, Best Films Of The Year
Director Sean Baker has made a name for himself telling unvarnished stories of poverty in America. His films, like Tangerine and The Florida Project, typically follow characters who are in desperate situations but are also selfish, nasty, or cruel, encouraging the viewer to see them as individuals rather than avatars for some social problem. They’re exciting like a bar fight—anything goes and you root for whoever happens to be closest to you—but also sobering and tragic like the long ride to the jailhouse afterwards. Anora—Baker’s latest, which brought home the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival—adds a little glitz and glamor into his recipe. Like Mikey Madison’s title character, Anora is pretty, messy, witty, wild, and highly competent, one of the funniest, saddest, and best films of the year.
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ANORA ★★★1/2 (3.5/4 stars) |
Twenty-three-year-old Ani (it’s Anora, but she goes by Ani) dances at one of Brooklyn’s ritzier strip clubs, where she makes hundreds of dollars an hour in tips and seems to have a good time doing it. A routine night of work turns life-changing when she meets the outrageously rich 21-year-old Vanya (Mark Eidelshtein), who hires her for sex the following day. The two hit it off, and soon Vanya hires Anora for a week-long stint as his girlfriend, à la Pretty Woman. One whirlwind week of non-stop partying later, and Vanya proposes a quickie Las Vegas marriage. For Vanya, this means instant American citizenship, which he sees as freedom from his powerful and controlling parents. For Ani, it’s a Cinderella story that ends with her and her goofy Prince Charming living happily ever after in fabulous luxury.
But that’s only Act One, after which Anora shifts from a glittery neon fantasy to a madcap comedy thriller that’s more in line with Baker’s previous works. Like in Tangerine or The Florida Project, we find ourselves following characters through silly predicaments on grimy city streets almost in real time, substituting Coney Island for Los Angeles or Orlando. It’s as if the Hollywood film language and production values are cast aside the moment we move past the film’s Hollywood ending. The fairy tale is over, and the scrappy little indie begins. Anora’s sense of absurd peril is on par with the “Pine Barrens” episode of The Sopranos or the drug deal with Alfred Molina in Boogie Nights. The danger is real, it’s just the people involved who are stupid and clumsy.
While Sean Baker’s humor often relies on characters being awful to each other, Anora’s ensemble is supremely likable. Mikey Madison is irresistible as the feisty and self-possessed Ani—this is a star-making role. Madison is a riot in this film, and she’s not the only one. Mark Eidelshtein is adorably pathetic as unburdened full-time partier Vanya, such that it’s easy to see how Ani could genuinely enjoy his company. He’s all id and impulse, an excited puppy with the resources to pursue his wildest whims—which, at the moment, include her.
Also here to steal every one of his scenes is Baker regular Karren Karagulian, who plays Toro, Vanya’s handler in Brooklyn. This may be a fairy tale for Ani, but for Toro it is a workplace disaster which he and his stooges Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura Borisov) will have to deal with if they want to keep their jobs and possibly their lives. They’re functionally gangsters, but they lack any of the menace or guile that implies. It’s a beautiful reflection of Ani’s life as a sex worker. She’s more than what she does for a living, but she’s a lot better at her job than they are at theirs. The idea that these goobers, or even the Russian oligarchs they work for, should hold power over her is ridiculous.
It’s only in the final act that the laughs start to fizzle out and Anora settles into a place of quiet meditation. This transition is earned, but it also feels as if the gears grind during the shift. The extent to which the pace slows down in the final 20 minutes evokes the feeling of the final guests leaving a party. The fun peters out over time, until finally you’re left alone with the mess.
The ways that Anora falls short of perfection are mostly nitpicks. I would have liked to hear the word “faggot” less often at the end of a joke and, deliberate as the deflating final minutes may be, it may take another viewing to convince me that it works. However, I’m certain that I’ll be revisiting this movie at least once, maybe even before it leaves cinemas. Like so many comedies (especially the subtler ones), Anora is best experienced with a packed house. Run, don’t walk, to a theater near you.